Untitled Goose Game: In the Land of Gods and Monsters, I Was a Horrible Goose
The games of 2019 reflected one of gaming’s most unique features – a vast diversity in premises and stakes which can make up a wonderful experience. The premises of my favorite games of this year ran the gamut between “Prisoner forced into labor aboard series of trashed spaceships” and “Gorilla got out of cage, is mad”. Good games, in 2019, can be anything, and I struggle to think of another media genre wherein the premise of “it’s a lovely morning in the village, and you are a horrible goose” would prompt me to so quickly pursue and devour a work. But the idea of being a horrible goose was too much to pass up.
When I was a young child spending summers at my grandparents’ house in Central Minnesota, my little sister and I often took trips out to a little park with a playground and a duck pond. We’d take a bag of stale bread from the pantry and spend time luring ducks towards us and feeding them. Eventually the city had to put a sign up imploring people not to feed the ducks any bread because it messed with their digestive systems which eventually polluted the pond. The ducks were friends to us. The geese, on the other hand, absolutely earned the ‘horrible’ moniker that the protagonist of the Untitled Goose Game later held.
When geese were near, bread (bagged or non-bagged) was treated as fair game. I had fingers and forearms bitten more than I’d like. I think my sister developed a long-lasting phobia of them when she got caught holding a half-loaf of sourdough. They were so mean, I used to think. I couldn’t understand just why they acted that way – so reckless and vicious, biting and chasing for food we would’ve given them anyway.
So when I played the Untitled Goose Game, and I stole a gardener’s hat, and I made a man break a vase, and I scared a boy into dropping a toy airplane on the ground, and then made him purchase the toy airplane back from the owner of the little market…I finally understood them.
In reality, geese don’t act that way without abandon. Geese act that way because it rules, and it’s very fun to act that way and do whatever they want. I’m grateful to House House for developing the game that gave me that experience. I’ve played so many extraordinary roles in games over my life – savior of royalty, hunter of space bounties, World Series MVP – but I had never experienced the joys of being a horrible goose.
